


Hello Again

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, S2 Canon Divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2018-10-26 06:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10781745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: Anonymous asked:What about a story where fitzsimmons didn't go work at sciops together and they meet up again ten years later when the real shield stuff happened?





	1. Chapter 1

“Do you need any back-up? A specialist?”

“Thank you, sir, but I think I can handle him.”

Fitz smirked at the handcuffs holding him to the table. They probably thought they could intimidate him with their obviously staged conversation right outside the cracked door of the containment module, but he’d learned a thing or two since–

“Agent Fitz.”

Fitz glanced up and any thought of bluffing his way through this interrogation dropped away.

“Simmons?”

She looked completely different. Alright, not completely, but her soft blazers had given way to a suit jacket, her Converse and combat boots to low heels.

“It’s been a while,” she said with a small smile as she took the seat across from him, laying down a manila folder. A photo peeked out the corner – no doubt a photo of him, again purposefully hinted at to throw him off.

“Ten years, yeah,” he replied, wishing he could withdraw his hands into his lap. _Why_ had May never trained him to control his nervous tics? “I have to admit I’ve not got any idea what you’ve been doing in that time.”

Upon graduation from the Academy, their application to be stationed together had been denied, their friendship seen as a liability. Fitz had ended up at SciOps, though he’d been forbidden from telling Jemma that. In fact, communication between them had been entirely stifled.

“I worked at the Triskelion for several years,” Jemma answered calmly, her gaze on him steady. “Then I requested a transfer and was placed on the _Iliad_ under Commander Gonzales.”

“Ah,” Fitz chuckled darkly, stretching his hands flat on the table to resist balling them into fists. “Gonzales. So you’re with _them_.”

“I’m with S.H.I.E.L.D., yes.”

“This isn’t S.H.I.E.L.D., Simmons,” Fitz spat, jerking his chin towards the two-way glass. “Not Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway.”

“Oh, have you talked to Fury, then?” Jemma asked, an edge in her voice for the first time. “Because the last memo we received listed him killed in action.”

“That’s what they said about Coulson too, funnily enough.”

“How _did_ you end up with Agent Coulson’s mobile unit, Agent Fitz?” Jemma tilted her head with an indulgent half-smile that Fitz recognized, even now, as an indication that Jemma was slightly peeved but also feeling superior. _Typical_. “As I recall, you swore you’d never go into the field.”

“Coulson offered me some… incentives.”

“He got you a monkey assistant, didn’t he?”

“It’s a hologram, but yeah,” Fitz muttered.

“Do you know where Agent Coulson is, Agent Fitz?”

Fitz had imagined seeing Jemma again dozens – nay, hundreds – of times in the years they’d spent apart. Never had their reunion included her attempting to get him to betray his director and friend.

“No,” he lied, frowning. “Bit pissed, honestly, that he left me here to fend with you lot.”

Jemma fiddled with the tab on the folder as if considering opening it, then nodded. “Well, you’ll find Commander Gonzales has a few incentives of his own he’d be happy to provide, should you choose to join us. Of course you’re free to go, but you must understand that S.H.I.E.L.D. cannot offer any protection once you leave this base.”

“You’ve changed,” Fitz blurted out. “You even _look_ different.”

“Clothes don’t make a person, Agent Fitz–”

“It’s not just that,” he huffed. “You don’t talk science anymore.”

Jemma smiled pityingly. “One has less time for science when one is promoted to Level 7.”

“You sound like you swallowed the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook.”

“Okay,” Jemma sighed, grabbing the folder and standing. “I was only trying to help, Agent Fitz, but I can see you need more time to think over our offer.”

“I’m not helping you,” Fitz muttered.

Jemma stopped at the door and looked back. “Just… consider it, Fitz, please?”

He watched the closed door after she left, wondering why she’d left the _Agent_ off that time.


	2. Chapter 2

Half an hour after his conversation with Jemma, Fitz was led out of the containment module, his hands still bound before him.

“Agent Fitz.” An older man with a flourishing mustache and a cane whom Fitz recognized as Commander Gonzales approached him slowly, flanked by Agent Weaver. “I’m told you’ve reached a decision.”

“Yes, sir.” It grated Fitz to use the term of respect, whatever Gonzales’s rank. “I accept your offer.”

Gonzales merely nodded, but Weaver exchanged a blatantly surprised look with Jemma, who was hovering nearby with a clipboard.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Gonzales rumbled. “We’ll be sure to put your talents to good use, and I expect you’ll find our company less objectionable than originally thought. Agent Simmons–” He nodded to Jemma, who bustled forward. “–will see you to your new quarters. We’ve had to commandeer the bunks for our operations, as much of the base’s equipment was destroyed when Coulson resisted.”

In the hallway, Jemma fell into step beside Fitz.

“I’m proud of you, Fitz,” she murmured, studying him as she’d done during their interrogation. “You made a brave decision.”

“Just saving my own skin,” Fitz muttered. It was easier to lie if he didn’t look at her. He didn’t need Coulson or May to tell him they could get farther in undermining Gonzales’ team with someone on the inside, and as a non-specialist he’d be the least suspected.

His new quarters, it turned out, where a cot and a washbasin segmented off from the rest of the lab wreckage by a thin divider.

“Seriously?” he asked Jemma, gesturing to the tiny space.

“It’s the best we can do at the moment,” she sighed. “And field agents are expected to–”

“Whatever, I’ll deal with it,” he cut her off. He didn’t need her patronizing reminders of S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol and training: it was all brainwashing without the human side of it that _this_ division clearly lacked.

“Your belongings will be brought over shortly. We understand today has been rather stressful, so Commander Gonzales leaves you to your own affairs for the rest of the day, but he will expect you back at work first thing tomorrow. Here are a few papers to review – whoops!”

As Jemma had tugged out several sheets from her clipboard, a ragged scrap had fallen out and drifted to the floor. Fitz stooped to retrieve it, but when he made to return it to her without looking, Jemma pressed a hand over his while passing him the papers with her other hand.

“Come find me if you have any questions,” she said firmly, eyes very wide on his face. Then she turned on her heel and was gone.

Fitz sank on the cot so that his back would shield the papers from any passersby. Ignoring the official sheets altogether, he uncrumpled the fallen scrap to find a note written in Jemma’s handwriting.

_Need to talk. Walls have ears. On your side – May, Hunter will attest. Will explain soon.  
_

He looked up at the divider, beyond which Gonzales’s agents continued to bustle as they cleared away broken shelves and shattered beakers. A decade ago, he wouldn’t’ve given trusting Jemma a second thought: it had been as natural as breathing. Now, with no idea of who she was or to what lengths she might go to manipulate him, he’d need a bit more than a scribbled declaration to go on.


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s not ready!”

“I think you’ll find it is,” Jemma snapped, snatching the vial back from Fitz’s grip.

“As someone who’s worked in an actual lab rather than a series of windowless offices for the last ten years,” Fitz ground out, his ability to maintain subtlety in his barbs degrading as their fight wore on, “I’m _pretty_ _sure_ my experience in this arena outranks yours, not matter how you cut it.”

“As someone who has more PhDs than you, I politely disagree.”

“It’s not—“ Fitz stopped childishly rushing after her about the lab and huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not going to _work_ if you apply the solution _now_ ,” he insisted. “Need I explain the procedure again?”

“I’m clear on the science, thanks,” Jemma said breezily. She returned to their shared work station and brushed aside his hands and continued clamoring. “Clear enough to know that this will work.”

“You can’t – shortcuts don’t—“ He groaned as she tipped the viscous liquid overtop of Coulson’s mysterious black cube, which predictably sparked and short-circuited, the pulsating light disappearing from its wavy crevasses. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“What _I’ve_ done?!” Jemma whirled on him, cheeks pink and hair flying in every direction in a way that made Fitz think – with annoying timing and irrelevance – of Hermione Granger. “That should’ve worked, you clearly sabotaged the thing! You’re still working with Coulson!”

“I’m doing no such thing!” Fitz lied vehemently. Though, to be fair, he _hadn’t_ tampered with the solution. “It’s not my fault you’re incompetent on top of being a cold-hearted, brown-nosing sell-out who doesn’t care a lollipop’s arse about science or people other than herself.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, truly. But as Jemma’s face perceptibly fell under his glare, he realized intentionality didn’t matter.

“Excuse me,” she whispered, and shedding her lab coat over the back of a chair, she fled from the room, her shoulders halfway up to her ears and her hands clutching her elbows as she hugged herself.

Fitz scowled at the tarnished toolbox, still smoking a bit, and the modules still running on his computer screen. If she’d just _listened_ to him, or read even one of the printouts… He kicked out at the chair, which only infuriated him further when it rolled away from him rather than inflicting pain on his toe.  

“Apologize to her.”

He turned to face May, who’d materialized soundlessly just two feet behind him.

“I will not!”

“You will if you know what’s good for you,” she said quietly, threateningly.

“Agent May,” he muttered, stepping up to her in case they might be overheard, “I may need to work within this system but I don’t need to grovel to the traitors trapping us here.”

“Simmons is not a traitor.”

Fitz scoffed. He’d read and re-read Jemma’s note assuring him she was on their side, but – “You don’t know that.”

“ _You_ don’t know, Fitz,” May hissed back. Her ferocity surprised him, but she caught his wrist before he could move away from her. “When Coulson recruited Agent Simmons at the Academy, she gave up a dozen easier, more illustrious futures to help root out Hydra within our midst. For ten years she’s risked herself every day to keep us, our work, and the whole damn world safe. And you know what else?” Her fingers tightened against his skin. “She _specifically_ asked for you when Gonzales’s team took our base. She _specifically_ made sure to save your neck.”

“Why?” was all Fitz could manage.

“What good is an engineer without a lab?”

She wasn’t telling him something; that much was obvious. Agent May’s face was as impassive as ever, but she only ever answered a question with a question when she was guarding a secret.

“Simmons is loyal, and kind, and brave to the point of being reckless and self-sacrificing. She will continue to help us whether you’re a jackass or not. But she stuck her neck out for you. The least you could do is apologize.”

Fitz watched her stalk away towards the practice rooms, feeling distinctly like he’d just been reprimanded by his mother or a particularly austere school marm.

He tried to sulk another five minutes, but the guilty broiling in his stomach overtook him. He hacked the security cameras, located Jemma, and followed her to the roof.


	4. Chapter 4

The sentries on either side of the door to the roof barely glanced at Fitz as he waved the file folder and muttered technical gobbledygook about ‘latest readings’ and ‘calibrate the monitors’ before slipping outside.

He still hadn’t worked out what he should say to Jemma. May had told him to play nice, but he’d never been a particularly adept liar. And however many years had passed, Fitz had a sense that Jemma wouldn’t have lost the eerie ability to get inside his head.

She was sitting on the concrete near the railing, and the way she hunched forward, he wondered if she’d been crying. But her face was clear, her mouth firm, her eyes closed-off when he reached her.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he joked weakly, nodding towards the picnic blanket spread under her.

“Did you find something?”

“No, I – I just needed a reason to talk to you. It’d look suspicious if we started getting too chummy outside the lab, since we’re not… friends.”

Jemma chuckled mirthlessly. “No, _that_ we are not.”

There was a steadfastness to her gaze that he didn’t remember from their time at the Academy. A hardness he associated more with Agent May. He remembered what May had said about the sacrifices Jemma had made, and he wondered for the first time since Jemma had strode into his interrogation pod whether she still called her parents every Friday night or whether she still drank that pisswater she’d called beer.

Sighing – because Agent May’s admonitions had taken on his mother’s voice in his head – Fitz lowered himself awkwardly onto the blanket beside Jemma, dropping the folder between them.

“May told you to come apologize, didn’t she?” Jemma asked softly.

Fitz winced. “She’s a bit of a nightmare. But she’s saved my life a few hundred times, so…”

“You’re lucky,” Jemma murmured, and when Fitz glanced over she was gazing down at her hands in her lap. “Lucky to have people who care that much about you, who have your back like that. I’ve been working on one team to help another team, and I… you start to lose track of who your friends are. Last time I felt sure of it was at the Academy, when—” She shook her head sharply and exhaled.

“You’ve got it all turned about,” Fitz cut in before she could continue. She tilted her head to look at him, somewhat patronizingly, because (he knew, even after all this time) she _hated_ to be told she was wrong. “Sure, I’ve got May, and Coulson, and my friend Skye’s really the person who’s kept me sane this last year, but—I’m not better off than you. I’m not… insulated from that stuff. After you and Gonzales’s team took over, I swore I’d never make a new friend as long as I live.”

Jemma laughed outright at that. “Oh, Fitz. That’s ridiculous.”

“Course it is. But – last year, I found out my best friend was Hydra. He tried to kidnap Skye and he shot Victoria Hand, and – and then last month, two of my friends revealed they’d been spying on our team the whole time. They _say_ they’re S.H.I.E.L.D. but – you have to wonder.” He shrugged, uncomfortable under her gaze. It was too easy to talk to her. Like they were sixteen again. If Gonzales wanted to trick Fitz into doing something, Jemma would be the perfect person to coerce him… “Even when you have people you trust and who’ll take a bullet for you, you never know when they’ll betray you.”

“Fitz –” She turned towards him, hands on her knee so her fingers almost brushed his leg. “I won’t betray you, you must know that. S.H.I.E.L.D. is everything to me, I believe in Coulson and May and Fury and _science_ –“

“My dad always said trusting people was my biggest weakness,” Fitz blurted. This time Jemma actually did reach out to touch him, and just as a distinctive smell can bring forth a wash of memory, the slight pressure of her hand on his thigh choked his chest with remembrances of squabbling over late-night cinnamon popcorn and feet nudging under library tables. “I trusted Ward, I trusted Bobbi and Mack, if you – if you betray me, I don’t know if I can—”

“Ward is a _Nazi_ ,” Jemma hissed. “He betrayed you because there’s something terribly wrong with _him_ , not with _you_. And Bobbi and Mack – they’re good agents, and in another time I’d’ve called them friends. Maybe they still can be. But we’re working for a world in which people like you, Fitz, _good_ people, aren’t punished for trusting their friends.  I—” She looked at him with a confusion he couldn’t place, her brow slightly knitted as she examined his face, then glanced out over the edge of the building. “You don’t have to like me, Fitz. I know we’ve both changed a great deal since the Academy. But I hope you can trust me.”

Many times over the past years, Fitz had wondered what it would’ve been like to still work with Jemma. If they hadn’t been separated, if they’d been at SciOps together (maybe they’d’ve shared a flat?), if they’d joined Coulson’s team together, would he have been happier? Could they have somehow kept Ward from doing what he’d done? He alone hadn’t been enough to stop Ward, but people had always said Fitzsimmons were smarter together.

Maybe it wasn’t too late.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowowowowowow cannot BELIEVE I haven't updated in a year! I mean, I CAN believe, life be crazy, but WOW! The good news is this is the seecond-to-last chapter and I've already got the last, short one outlined and hope to write it tomorrow! 
> 
> If you've read this before or are reading it now, thank you!!

By dint of being high up in Gonzales’s team (Head of Personnel Acquisition and Manager of the Science Division Until Such Time As Agent Fitz Can Be Deemed Loyal – or so Fitz assumed her titles to be), Jemma was one of the few people to be allotted an actual office rather than one of the shoddy cubicles set up in the common areas. It made it easier to focus – and it also made it easier for them to be candid, away from suspicious eyes.

At Weaver’s behest, they were currently holed up in said office analyzing Skye’s DNA for the dozenth time. Jemma had been impressed by the analysis Fitz had completed before the SHIELD fissure (“especially as chemistry never was your forte”), but it still didn’t answer nearly enough of their questions. Of course, while answering these questions, they were also seeking to screen out information that might give Gonzales’s team too much of an advantage or induce them to see Skye as a threat.

(Jemma had been the one to suggest this. A hiss in the back of his mind said she was still just trying to con him, but he told it to shut the bloody hell up.)

“Can you, um…” Jemma didn’t even look up from her tablet as she waved at Fitz from long table on which they’d spread their print-outs and speculative notes. “Can you get the – the –”

“Words, Simmons.”

She glanced up with a scowl and gestured at the small filing cabinet by the window. “The folder on non-human biological samples.”

Fitz stopped halfway across the room. “There aren’t _actually_ biological samples in the folder, are there?”

“As if that would be at all practical, sanitary, or sustainable!”

“Only joking,” Fitz muttered, rifling through the cabinet. “Got i-it…”

His hands froze over a folder farther back, marked _Toolbox, Fury, Nick._

“Everything alright?”

“Em—” Fitz thought about pretending he hadn’t seen it. Maybe he could sneak back in later, on the pretense of having forgotten his cardigan or something, and see what she had in there.

But she was already beside him, and she inhaled sharply as she saw what he was looking at.

“Oh – don’t worry about that—” she said quickly, obviously flustered, trying to snag it from him as he pulled it out.

He shot her a look – not exactly accusatory, but suspicious – and flipped the folder open.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before: they’d worked on the toolbox side-by-side just last week, after all. His own sketches, the chemical diagrams for the solution with which Jemma had ultimately fried the box – but –

“This isn’t—” He traced the equations with a fingertip. “This isn’t the solution you used.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jemma said firmly. Her cheeks were pink.

“You knew what you were doing,” he said slowly. He let her take the file back and watched her shove it farther into the depths of the cabinet before slamming the whole drawer shut. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you destroyed the toolbox. You had these equations the whole time, a different solution that would’ve opened it, and instead—”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken. After all, I have a PhD in—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he interrupted softly.

Jemma’s hands twisted before her for a moment. She shrugged, moving away from him back towards the table. “I thought you’d feel like I was using it to make a point. To prove that you could trust me. And I didn’t think that was my place. I don’t think any _proof_ I give you will help – you need to decide to trust me in your own time.”

Fitz snorted. “Well, that was a miscalculation. The likelihood of that—”

“Is low, I know. Seeing as you’re a stubborn arse.” Jemma was glowering down at her tablet again. She seemed – embarrassed, to be caught out helping him, like she’d done something noble and felt that receiving the credit would tarnish the act.

“Always have been.” He sat opposite her, curling the corner of one of the papers. “For example, May told me weeks ago that you stuck your neck out for me, when you all first arrived. And I never thanked you.”

Jemma’s hands stilled, one finger hovering above the screen of the tablet. “Oh.”  

“So. Thanks, I guess.”

She finally looked up at him and he caught the end of an eye-roll; she was obviously feeling less discomfited. “Great apology, Fitz.”

They both pretended, rather badly, to be working for a few more moments, and then Fitz probed, “May also said you… you went through a lot, in the last ten years. To get here. For SHIELD, for Coulson, all that. I was just… wondering what that was like. If you – if you want to—”

“Oh, that,” Jemma said airily, with the practiced ease of someone who’s gotten used to laughing about their traumas. “Nothing abnormal for our field. Less time doing science than I’d like, of course. A few scratches, a few close calls.”

Fitz nodded, not wanting to push. It seemed for a moment that was all he’d get, and he figured that was fair, given his own frequent expressions of distrust. But then Jemma shifted and kept going.

“I was undercover for a while, actually. There was a bit of a thrill to it, at first, getting to be someone else and play-act and inhabit a different life. But then it was just dangerous and exhausting and lonely.”

“How long?”

“Fourteen months,” Jemma murmured. “Missed two birthdays. And…”

He was surprised – stunned, really – to see her eyes were glazed with tears. Her mouth scrunched up a bit as she sought to keep herself from crying.

“While I was there, while I was… away, my – both my parents died. Sinkhole. Freak accident. And I didn’t find out until I came back, ten months after it’d happened. The mission had been too important to pull me out, they said. I never got to say goodbye – missed the blasted funeral—”

She scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm for a second. Fitz felt a strange tightness in his chest – mirroring behavior, he assumed, empathy produced by seeing someone in distress.

“Anyway,” Jemma shrugged, forcing a smile. “I’ve tried not to be bitter. But I always got the feeling Coulson would’ve ended the mission and let me come home, if I’d been on his team instead of working for Gonzales.”

Fitz shook his head a bit blearily, as if trying to clear water from his ears. He’d forgotten for a moment that they weren’t technically on the same side.

He was about to offer his condolences, maybe hold her hand or something, when she gave a little squeak and turned red again.

“If – if May told you that, she must’ve also mentioned…” She trailed off, obviously expecting him to finish the thought for her.

“Mentioned…?” he repeated.

“Oh.” She was clearly relieved and let out a little embarrassed laugh. “Never mind, then.”

“What is it?” he pressed, surprised to feel himself smiling. “Must be something awful, to make you that desperate for me not to know.”

“Really? My secrecy comes as a surprise to you?” Jemma shot back, deadpan.

“Fair.” Fitz waited nonetheless, but Jemma wasn’t telling. “Honestly? Nothing?”

“That’s quite enough oversharing for one afternoon, I think,” Jemma replied primly. “Shall we return to our _work_ , Doctor Fitz?”

He kicked her under the table, but he was still grinning.

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Shouldn’t they get field agents to do this?” Fitz complained.

Jemma finished swabbing the doorhandle for prints and dropped the swab into the clear plastic bag Fitz held out for her. “Technically, you _are_ a field agent,” she reminded him.

“No, not _technically_ – in practice but not in certification. Just because you sometimes give people emergency medical treatment doesn’t make you doctor—”

 “Actually—”

“ _Medical_ doctor,” he ground out. “We all know about your PhDs.”

Jemma stepped aside to let Fitz pick the lock, then followed him into the motel room, still talking. “Besides, if, as the receptionist attests, Coulson and his associates did vacate the room this morning, there should be no danger to us. We’ll just grab some prints, look for anything that might point us to their next stop, and be back at headquarters in no time.”

“And if you find what you’re looking for?” Fitz queried carefully, as Jemma began to walk about the room with a tablet and a scanner. “Would you tell Gonzales?”

Jemma frowned at him. “I don’t know. Given the opportunity, I’d share it with May first, give her a chance to communicate with Coulson and give him the tip-off. With our tablets tracking everything we monitor, it’ll be difficult to hide from leadership.”

Fitz grunted. That was fair. He set out the DWARFs case and started bringing them online. This little forensic sweep likely could’ve been conducted with more old-fashioned methods, but if they had the technology, why waste it?

“That’s strange,” Jemma murmured. She’d stopped by the window.

Fitz rose and crossed to stand behind her, looking at the tablet over her shoulder. “Oh, that’s just the Quinjet,” he said in some relief, seeing the outline on the screen. “They must be cloaked. That’ll mean they’re nearby, though.”

“No, I know _that_ ,” Jemma sighed. “A giant plane-shaped object that’s invisible to the naked eye is a bit hard to misinterpret. I mean _that_ ,” she clarified, pointing to a different form, its shape unclear and perplexing.

“Jemma, _get down_!” Fitz yelled, shoving her aside as he realized what the shape represented.

The wall next to the window exploded. Fitz was flung across the room onto his back, bits of debris tearing through his clothes and into the skin of the arm he’d thrown up to protect his face.

Jemma crawled towards him through the dust.

“Fitz,” she coughed, hands flurrying to his neck and wrist and chest to make sure he was okay. “Come on, let’s get you out of here—”

“It’s okay, Simmons, it’s—”

Mike Peterson stepped through the hole and into the room, his weaponized right arm trained on the pair of them. Jemma flinched but tried to shield Fitz with her body.

“Oi, oi, oi, Mikey, calm down, they’re with us,” came another voice from just outside.

“Hunter?” Jemma and Fitz said in unison.

Hunter squeezed around Mike’s broad shoulders and surveyed the scene, shaking his head. “Bloody hell, mate, no need to go all Deathlok on our friends.”

“Yeah, what the hell, Mike,” Fitz echoed faintly, his head dropping back against Jemma’s leg.

“Sorry,” Mike said, lowering his arm. “It’s a bit hard to tell friend from foe from just a heat scan.”

“Forget him, what the hell, _Fitz?_ ” Jemma snapped. Fitz had to cradle his bleeding arm as she shoved him off her lap. “What the hell were you _thinking_ , flinging yourself into danger like that?”

Fitz blinked. “I wanted you to know I trusted you.”

“By getting yourself _killed_? There are easier ways to that same end! Like _telling_ me, with _words_!”

“Noted,” Fitz grumbled, and he pushed himself to his feet, recognizing he’d get no help from her.

“Glad to see you two are getting along,” Hunter grinned.

 

 

 

Back at the base, the teams waited in the common room, Mack and Bobbi at the kitchen table, Hunter, Fitz, and Mike on the couches, and Jemma and May hovering somewhere in between.

Gonzales and Coulson came down after about an hour and announced the new arrangement: a panel of directors, with each agent still reporting to his or her original superior.

“Agent Simmons,” Gonzales called. Jemma blanched but stepped forward. “As I understand it, you’ve been working against me all these years.”

“Not – not _against_ you, exactly – ”

“I’m impressed,” he cut her off, and Jemma looked even more confused, though Coulson and May were smiling. “You’ve proved yourself a tremendous asset. And after speaking with Director Coulson, I can see that you were supporting the cause and values you believe in – the SHIELD that you believe in. And that’s not totally incompatible with my own.”

“Brilliant,” Jemma breathed.

“That being said, in this reshuffling and reorganization, I’ll allow you to switch to serving under Coulson, if you prefer, as that appears to have been your allegiance all along.”

Fitz felt a giddy rush. They’d finally, officially be teammates – working alongside each other again, in total cooperation, just as they had done at the Academy.

“Sir,” Jemma said, interrupting his internal celebration, “I’m afraid I must decline.”

“ _What_?” Fitz, Hunter, and Coulson spoke at the same time.

“If I join Director Coulson’s team, I will be in direct violation of SHIELD regulations.”

“Simmons—” May said quietly, obviously understanding where Jemma was going with all this.

“I’m not following,” Director Gonzales admitted.

Jemma took a steadying breath and turned to face Fitz.

“Fitz. Do you remember why we were separated, after the Academy?”

“Of course. They said our friendship was a liability.”

“Well – yes. But… that wasn’t the whole truth.” She’d balled her hands into fists, as if needing the pressure to make herself keep going. “After I joined Gonzales’s team, Weaver informed me that it… it was actually because I failed my polygraph.”

Fitz’s mouth dropped open.

“I failed because… they asked me if I felt … _more_ for you, than just friendship. And I said no.”

There was a fierce rushing in his ears, like all his blood was gathering in his head, threatening to make him pass out. Once he caught up, though, he scrambled off the couch and hurried towards Gonzales and Coulson.

“Sir, sir, don’t make Simmons make this decision. Let her go to Coulson’s team, and I’ll – I’ll report to Gonzales.”

“What the heck is happening?” Mack muttered. Bobbi raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“Fitz, you can’t be serious!” Jemma hissed, spinning on him.

“It’s not your fault,” he explained hurriedly, grinning foolishly. “It’s not – us getting separated – I bet all these years, you’ve been thinking it was your fault, because of that test, but – I passed my polygraph, Jemma.”

Her frown deepened. “O…kay?”

“I passed,” he persisted, “because they asked me that same question – if I – if I felt – and I told the truth. That I was in love with you.”

“Oh,” Jemma said faintly.

“So I understand,” Fitz continued firmly, sidling next to Jemma and taking her hand for reassurance (for himself as well as for her), “that it’s against SHIELD regulations for us to be on the same team, feeling the way we do. Or did?” he murmured, glancing down at Jemma.

“Do,” she said quickly, biting her lip to keep from grinning.

“Right,” Fitz breathed. “Em – so.” He looked back at the directors. “We’ll not fight you on that count. But if we are officially on different teams, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Coulson and Gonzales exchanged a look, and when they turned faced their agents again, Fitz was surprised to see they were both smirking.

“I’m sure we can find a way to work it out,” Gonzales assured them.

“New SHIELD, new rules,” Coulson agreed.

Fitz would’ve kissed Jemma right there, if he wasn’t trying to hold on to the one shred of professional dignity he had left. He settled for sweeping her into a crushing hug as she laughed into his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE ENDDDDDD


End file.
